‘How dance reshapes, builds children’
‘How dance reshapes, builds children’
By Kolawole Bamidele
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It was a thrilling and a moment filled with excitement showcased by pupils of Nursery and Primary Schools across Ondo State at a dance completion tagged ‘Kids Dance Arena’.
The highly entertaining show, held at Ondo State Cultural Center in Akure, featured inter-school dance completion, ‘Not too old to dance’ among others.
Kids dance arena is an annual dance competition organized by the praise dance academy and a platform for talent exhibition.
The event, a two staged dance competition, has the first stage in classical dances which are ballet, contemporary dance, Hip hop etc and the second stage in Traditional, cultural dance, afro pop etc.
The initiative, no doubt, was also a great platform for children to unwind after the week’s academic stress and more importantly, to showcase their dance skills to the ever-smiling audience.
The Pupils, clad in their beautifully made costumes, entertained their audience with varying dance steps that would linger on in their memories for many years to come.
According to the Convener of the event, Mr Babalola Abiodun, the CEO of Praise Dance Academy, he said Kids dance arena is a community art project designed to emphasize on the psychosocial benefits and impacts of dance in early stage through a creative approach.
“Dance as an intelligent expression of human experience and an important source of understanding that contributes to our cognitive, emotional, and physical growth in a multicultural settings.
“It is innate in children before they possess command over language and it is evoked when thoughts or emotions are too powerful for words to contain.
He further explained that, dance, apart from its numerous benefits for the kids which include; physical health improvement, enhancement of emotional development, encouragement of socialization, creativity and lots more, it increases children’s self-esteem and lots more.
Some parents who spoke with Friday Extravaganza, applauded the Convener’s initiative and described it as a veritable platform for the children to socialise and be creative.
“For adults, we see dance as one of the best ways to exercise our body, reduce weight and keep fit always. Besides this, it reduces tension, improves muscle tone, enhances weight management, stronger bones, reduces risk of osteoporosis, gives better coordination, agility and flexibility”, they stated.
The competing schools were judged based on vitality, stage management, costume, quality of performance, creativity.
At the end of the enthralling and expressive show, Camp David Academy emerged overall best, Seado Academy came second, while Kinder schuul finished third.
There was also kids dance championship, an individual dance competition where we had George Oguntimeyin as the winner, Toludare David as the first runner up and Amazing Amenze as the second runner up.
Also the creative dance championship segment has Bayode Ayokunle as the winner, while Adetolu Anthonia emerged first runner-up and Ilochonwu Daniel as the second runner-up.